Marriage, home-ownership, and the trials and tribulations of nursing school and career-building in Northern California

Jams & Jellies

Yesterday a very kind neighbor dropped off a large bag of mission figs. Using a recipe from Pick Your Own (which is one of my favorite sources for basic preserving info), I made two types of fig jam.

Fig & Rhubarb Jam and Fig Jam

Since I’m not eating refined sugar I went the apple juice route for a replacement sugar. In hindsight, I really don’t think I needed to add sugar or pectin to the recipe. I didn’t think the pectin I was using would jell up so much with the apple juice, but after cooking it was basically apple jelly with fig chunks in it. I ended up splitting the fig jam into two pots, adding rhubarb I’d frozen to the second batch, and throwing more lemon juice into both pots to try and balance the apple flavor a bit. I think the end result is still a bit off, but edible. The rhubarb-fig jam is definitely better (Paul thought it tasted like strawberry-rhubarb jam, which I think is a good thing).

Pluot Herb Jam

This pluot-herb jam was made over the weekend while up at my parent’s house, following this recipe. It’s really good. Probably my favorite jam I’ve made. I’m hoping that they still have pluots on the tree next weekend when they come down so I can can up more of them. What I really love about it is that it’s sweet enough to be used as a jam on toast, but tart enough that it would be great with cheese (not that I can eat cheese or toast, but that’s another story).

Along these same lines, I’ve added all the things I’ve canned over the summer to my sidebar, and will continue to add to it.